When search retargeting was new a few years ago, marketers everywhere were excited about the concept. As a new audience acquisition solution, the ability to tie an advertising campaign back to a specific data set that declared a user’s intent, this was a refreshing breakthrough. At the time, of course, few online marketers even understood search retargeting, let alone used it. Yet, as word of its power spread, more and more users adopted it until there was a stampede of ad networks and DSPs eager to include search retargeting among their offerings. There’s nothing new about this. It� [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Display | Search & Display | Search Ads | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting

There’s been some grumbling among PPC marketers over the last few weeks about a few specific changes in Enhanced Campaigns – in particular, the loss of tablet vs. desktop segmentation, which was previously a best practice for mobile advertising strategy. One of my well-respected colleagues put it bluntly: Now, if you’ll forgive my attention-grabbing headline (based on 'It's the Economy, Stupid'), I’m definitely not actually calling anyone stupid – and, you can certainly see by the volume of re-tweets and favorites, it’s clearly a widely-shared view. However, I recently had th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Enterprise SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: AdWords: Enhanced Campaigns | Search Ads | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Ads: Mobile Search

We talk a lot in the digital industry about the overlap between search media and display media, and how when planned and operated in unison, there is a 1+1=3 benefit model that magically appears, resulting in higher returns than could be generated by those channels on their own. But does this overlap really exist, and does 1+1 really equal 3, or does is it actually just equal 2? In order to find out the answer, I recently asked several experienced figures within our industry for their insights and comment. AKQA Media – Drew Wahl, Director of Business Development Booyah Advertisin [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search & Display | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Ads: General

I know this industry evolves fast, but damn! Just 18 months ago, most media planners and search marketers had not heard of search retargeting, and already we are in what could easily be called version 3.0. With the agency hat back on (for today), we look at whether this tactic is living up to the growing hype. When the principle was first explained to me, I was running an agency display media team at a search agency that was focused on direct response clients; I was therefore interested in tactics that involved precise data points as a way to focus on user intent. Search retargeting seem [...]

Related Topics: Advanced | Channel: SEM | How To: SEM | Search & Display | Search Ads | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Ads: Contextual

Last month, we discussed how display media has evolved to be more quantitative in Why Search Marketers Are The Future Media Planners, and ironically, how the skillset held by search marketers has become more relevant to display media than the skill set held by current media planners. Using the real-time environment of the media exchanges, ‘search retargeting’ is one of several techniques that has created a safe bridge for SEM marketers to move into display and see almost instant results, and it is the SEM budget holders that are trying it quicker than the media planners (and who often [...]

Related Topics: Advanced | Channel: SEM | How To | How To: SEM | Search & Display | Search Ads | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting

Following my last post on behavioral targeting, which was an overview of the field, I will provide a more hands-on approach in this post. To briefly recap, behavioral targeting involves creating multiple "personas" that represent multiple users of your site, and using analytics to create a unique experience for each persona group based on observed and predicted behavior. The first step to a successful behavioral targeting process is finding the right targets. It is not always obvious which users should be "bucketed" together. Creating effective buckets requires knowledge about the site and [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Google: Analytics | How To: Analytics | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | SEM Tools: Web Analytics

Behavioral targeting (BT) has been the buzzword of the year for the last two years in the web analytics field. But is BT really all that important and valuable to the companies making use of it? The answer is usually yes. And does it take a team of PhDs to implement BT for a website? The answer is usually no. In this and a following post I will explain the value that behavioral targeting offers, and show how a marketer can make use of BT to make the website experience richer for users, and increase conversion rates. According to Wikipedia, there are two principal types of behavioral target [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Features: Analysis | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | SEM Tools: Web Analytics

Get ready marketers: a credible new report with sweeping implications from the University of Pennsylvania and UC Berkeley is likely to be the nail in the coffin of self regulation of online advertising. Specifically I'm talking about behavioral targeting, which largely concerns online display advertising but does marginally touch search at Yahoo and Google. The NY Times discussed the report, released today: The study’s authors hired a survey company to conduct interviews with 1,000 adult Internet users. The interview, which lasted about 20 minutes, included questions like "Please tell me [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Legal | Google: Web History & Search History | Legal: General | Legal: Privacy | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Yahoo: Legal

SEMPO formally released data on the state of search engine marketing, its annual survey of agencies and marketers. This year's survey consisted of 800 respondents from all over the globle. However 68 percent of respondents were from the US, with 20 percent coming from a range of countries. Seven percent of respondents were from Canada and 5 percent from the UK. The respondents/clients represented a range of industries. The top sectors were "retail, business services, electronics manufacturing and financial services." As part of the findings and related report SEMPO forecast that SEM spen [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Marketing: Branding | Search Marketing: General | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: Stats | Top News

Call it the "Cuban Missile Crisis" of online advertising: consumers and publishers are increasingly at odds over online ad targeting and behavioral targeting (BT) in particular. While that may be a hyperbolic characterization, the majority of US internet users appear uncomfortable with online tracking and targeting at a time when publishers and search engines are more aggressively embracing it. Most recently, Google introduced BT as "interest-based advertising" on the AdSense network. Yahoo, which has been using BT for quite some time, started factoring search queries into the targeting mix [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Legal: Privacy | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Marketing: General

SEMPO's new report, due to be released this week, cuts its forecast for search advertising. The results are based on a survey of almost 900 agencies and search marketers. According to the Wall Street Journal, the report scales back previous growth projections considerably: [SEMPO] says North American search marketing spending will increase only 9% to $14.7 billion in 2009 from $13.5 billion a year ago. Its previous estimates, made in early 2008, called for the industry to grow at more than twice that rate this year, from $15.7 billion in 2008 to $18.8 billion in 2009. The new forecasts call f [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Ads: General | Search Marketing: General | SEM Industry: General | SEM Industry: Organizations | SEM Industry: Stats | Stats: Spend Projections | Top News

Over the past year, the term "post-click marketing" has come up more frequently in search marketing discussions, especially in the context of improving conversion rates and overall search ROI. At SMX West earlier this month, Gordon Hotchkiss of Enquiro unequivocally declared that post-click marketing moves the needle for their clients more than any other aspect of search marketing. So what exactly is post-click marketing and how can you leverage it in your search marketing program? Here's a brief introduction. Post-click marketing > landing pages The simplest definition of post-cli [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Features: Analysis | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Marketing: Landing Pages

Not long ago, Google rolled out its "Geolocation API" (via Google Gears). Initially it was intended to enable third party publishers and developers to get location for their apps on mobile devices using a combination of the phone's inherent location-awareness technologies (i.e., GPS) and Google's cell-tower database (which has been expanded now to include WiFi locations). However it also works for destkop browsers, provided that Gears is installed on the computer. Here's the Google Code Blog discussing the impact: When we originally proposed the Gears Geolocation API our goal was to make i [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Features: General | Google: AdWords | Google: Maps & Local | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Ads: General | Search Ads: Mobile Search | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing | Yahoo: Display Ads | Yahoo: Search Ads

The Yahoo Search Marketing Blog announced they have improved the targeting and relevancy of their content match product. The improvements will lead to a higher click through rate on ads and higher satisfaction. The specific improvement is that they now not only target the ads based on the content of the page, but also based on the user viewing the page. Yahoo will tailor the ad based on the "users' geographic and behavioral profiles." [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Yahoo: Publisher Network | Yahoo: Search Ads

Privacy is dead, get used to it. In the effort to rescue display advertising from its historically dismal performance and so-called "banner blindness," behavioral targeting (BT) was born a few years ago with Tacoda. It has both increased in popularity and infamy since that time. Consumers prefer more "relevant" ads but they also dislike being tracked. That's the paradox and the problem with BT. Here's the issue in a nutshell. According to a March 2008 survey by Truste (written up in MediaPost), "nearly three out of four people, or 71%, said they realize that companies track their Web browsin [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Legal: Privacy | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Ads: Contextual

For those just joining us, Facebook was overly aggressive with its Beacon tracking program, one of several new ad programs launched in early November. Beacon required users to opt-out or have their activity and transactions on Facebook partner sites broadcast to their networks back on Facebook. Discovering this, many people were frustrated and upset by what they felt was a lack of disclosure regarding the implications of the tracking. Under pressure from users, the media, and privacy groups, Facebook modified Beacon's opt-out policy on Friday, apparently making participation opt-in. But the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Facebook | Legal: Privacy | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting

Forget Facebook. Search Ads Are the Revolution from Danny Sullivan's monthly AdAge column talks about how search ads compare to Facebook's ads. That column is the topic in this week's SEOmoz's Whiteboard Friday. Danny sat down with Rand Fishkin at SEOmoz's office in Seattle to create the following video. Enjoy! [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Facebook | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Ads: General | Search Engines: Social Search Engines

As we wrote yesterday, Facebook faced a furor from critics who argued its Beacon program went too far in tracking its users' actions on non-Facebook sites and broadcasting those back through Facebook newsfeeds. As of last night the company had decided to make changes in the advertising program to appease critics who have brought much unwelcome negative publicity to the social network. Here's the New York Times' coverage. The biggest change appears to be that the program will now require an "opt-in" rather than an "opt-out" by users. The actions will still be tracked and captured, but they will [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Facebook | Legal: Privacy | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting

Facebook has launched a new Facebook Ads program offering three major products for advertisers: Facebook Pages, a way for businesses to build branded pages on Facebook to connect with their audiences; Facebook Social Ads, an ad system allowing Facebook users to be targeted by demographic interest, and "friend activities," and Facebook Beacons, allowing activities at sites off Facebook to flow back in. Facebook Pages allow brands to have profile pages on Facebook in the same way that people have them. (see Coca-Cola's screenshot from ZDNet) with marketing messages, games, video, et [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Facebook | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting | Search Ads: Contextual

Google is attending and sending high-profile representatives to speak at the US FTC's "town hall" meeting, which starts today, on "behavioral advertising." The broad phenomenon of behavioral targeting will be under scrutiny as privacy and consumer advocates presumably point out the risks of the practice. On the rewards side will be Google and other Internet stakeholders who argue that without advertising – and increasingly personalization – the Internet as we know it wouldn't exist. Tim Armstrong, Google’s President of North American Advertising and Commerce, as well as two Google atto [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: Legal | Legal: Privacy | Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting